It is normal experience during cooking to use a spoon, usually of wood, for mixing food undergoing cooking in a frying pan or Saucepan, then having completed this operation not to know where to rest the spoon which, if laid on the cooking hob soils it, being itself now soiled with the mixed food. The spoon is sometimes left in the frying pan, with the risk that as its handle projects from the frying pan it catches fire, or becomes black in the long term if of wood or of another material sensitive to prolonged heating, in that region which projects just beyond the frying pan. To avoid these drawbacks, a plate is sometimes placed on the hob on which to rest the spoon, but with the result that the plate becomes soiled.